OS X on Windows 7 Desktop (Part 1)

I didn't want to risk installing OS X on my new system, so the safe way to do this was through a virtual machine. So this is basically the opposite of what people do on the Mac with Parallels. I installed Oracle VirtualBox on my Windows 7 Ultimate PC (3 Ghz Core i7-950). This project was a lot easier than OS X on Eee PC 1000HE mainly because each attempt on this super computer only took 15 minutes... as opposed to 2 hours on the netbook. Also, in this case the instructions on the net are much better. I don't even have to write my own findings. I follow this one:

http://www.taranfx.com/install-snow-leopard-virtualbox

I'm really only half way there though. I basically have Leopard (10.5.7) installed right now. The goal is to get Snow Leopard (10.6.3) running because I originally purchased a copy for the netbook. But it turns out 10.6.2 was the last version that supported the Atom processor. So I don't want my Snow Leopard DVD to go to waste. The next step is to install it using the Leopard install that's currently there. I'm at the point where I need to convert the DVD to .ISO format. That's actually done and sitting on my netbook. Transferring that 8 GB image is a problem though. Stay tuned!

Bryce's Birthday

Exactly 1 year later, but on a Sunday this time was Bryce's 6th Birthday party. Since Bryce started school, he has a ton of classmate friends now, so the party was at Whitestone Lanes rather than Century Buffet. I've been passing by this place for years and have never been inside before, so it was interesting to finally attend an event there. Whitestone Lanes is located at the corner of Linden Place and Whitestone Expressway. It's across from Toys R Us and the movie theater. The area used to be a bad one before the movie theater was build. It has improved significantly since then. While the outside appearance doesn't look that appealing, it was very kid-friendly and it seemed routine for them to have kids' birthday parties there.

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Get your own

We had 6 lanes for an hour and then the party room for about another hour. It was a comfortable crowd on a Sunday afternoon... not too packed, but not empty either. The customers were all parents taking their kids out. The staff was great at helping the kids get started and making sure all of the equipment was up and running. Though the primary function was bowling, their food was good too.

Related: 3rd Birthday (2008), 4th Birthday (2009), 5th Birthday (2010), Whitestone Lanes

Donations to Japan

Friday's earthquake and tsunami permanently shifted Japan's coastline by a good 8ft. The country will still experience several aftershocks to come, so it will be a difficult recovery. I went through my list of relief organizations and personally link-checked all of them to make sure they had a way of donating to this specific disaster:

• AmeriCares
• ADRA
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Inc.
• Church World Service
• Episcopal Relief and Development
• Food for the Hungry
• International Orthodox Christian Charities
• Lutheran World Relief
• MercyCorps
• Medical Teams International
• Operation USA
• Oxfam International
• Plan USA
• Project Hope
• UMCOR
• World Relief
• World Vision

Thank you.